


The Opposite of a War Movie

by misura



Category: Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk - Ben Fountain
Genre: M/M, Non-Chronological, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-04
Updated: 2016-11-04
Packaged: 2018-09-03 14:53:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,000
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8718154
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/misura/pseuds/misura
Summary: Billy's survived Afghanistan, survived terr-ists and sama and mackin em pay fur nina eleven and if after all that, all he wants out of life is to be left alone, to get a shitty little job in a shitty little town, working for a shitty little man, who can blame him? (Stupid question. Easy answer.)





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [storiesfortravellers](https://archiveofourown.org/users/storiesfortravellers/gifts).



> I actually bought this book last year, hoping to write you something for it then, but that didn't work out.
> 
> and then they made a movie (which I still haven't seen) and you requested these guys again, so I figured it was now or never.

Billy isn't even sure how it happens, really, after.

Like Al-Ansakar, all over again, except that there's nobody catching this on video, nobody who's going to put this up on YouTube after. This rescue, if it is, in fact, a rescue will not be publicized. This monumental, life-changing event will not be scrutinized.

So maybe it's more like all of his life so far, just more of the same. _Sir yes sir._

And why not?

He's survived Afghanistan, survived _terr-ists_ and _sama_ and _mackin em pay fur nina eleven_ and if after all that, all he wants out of life is to be left alone, to get a shitty little job in a shitty little town, working for a shitty little man, who can blame him?

 

"Fuck that shit," Dime said, when Billy called him with the okay news.

He'd mostly called out of some strange sense of obligation. Dime was who kept him alive in Afghanistan. Billy felt the least he could do was let him know he was all right, that Dime didn't need to worry about him no more, now that they're back.

Maybe part of him knew, though. Maybe, like Kathryn told him later, it was really an act of pure selfishness - or, in her own words, a cry for help _"which you need, you idiot"_. (She still blames him, a little, for not talking to those people who wanted to help him, back when, nearly as much as she blames herself, and he wants to tell her it's okay, he's still alive, everything's okay.)

"Mr. Whaley's real nice," Billy said, a bit defensively, he thought, like maybe he didn't believe it himself. "It's a good opportunity for me."

"Tell you what," Dime said. "You get your ass over here right now, I'll have found you something better in two weeks. Hell, two days. You hearing me, Billy?"

It's instinct. "Yes Sergeant." No thinking required.

"Shit," Dime said. "Call me 'David' or something, will you?"

Billy knew that wasn't going to happen. He suspected Dime knew it, too, so he said, "Yes, Mr Dime, sir," realizing that he was grinning, feeling happy. Feeling better.

Feeling like he'd just been saved.

 

Billy hadn't known in advance what to expect, but the moment he stepped inside, he knew that it was this, like some part of him had known all along what any apartment lived in by Dime would look like.

There were books, yes, and magazines. There was a Dime-ness to everything, from the kitchen table to the posters right down to the last spoon. It was hard to put into words how something like a spoon could remind you of another person, how you could look at it and know that yes, this was a spoon that belonged here.

Billy hadn't brought any spoons. He'd packed clothes, a few books he hadn't read for ages and a few that he had, even though he suspected that he'd never do so again. Too many memories of stuff that had happened while he'd been reading them last time.

"Made you up a guest room," Dime said. He was wearing jeans and a shirt, casual.

Billy knew that even if he put on the same jeans, the same shirt, they wouldn't look right on him. He'd look like a guy who'd borrowed someone else's clothes, bizarrely out of place.

"Thanks." It seemed inadequate. Nobody was paying Dime to look after Billy anymore - except that, let's be real here, 'looking after Billy' had never been in Dime's job description from the start. You didn't join the army to 'look after people' - you could do that by becoming a school teacher, or a nanny. A nurse.

Dime shrugged. "It'll be nice to have some company. Mind, you get a job real quick. The rent on this place is no joke."

 

The second time they kiss will be Billy's fault. Billy's responsibility.

It'll be less violent than their first one, easier to pretend it never happened the next day, because Billy won't quite dare to make it violent - and he won't be sure if he even wants to; he's not aggressive, really, not when it comes to this kind of stuff. He'll just have a pleasant buzz in his head and Dime will be sitting there, relaxed, maybe even happy, and for no reason at all (which is the best reason in the world, or seems to be, at the time) Billy will kiss him.

He'll take it slow. He'll tell himself it's to give Dime a chance to say _stop_ , or maybe _fuck off_ , because some people get touchy when you try to kiss them all of a sudden, out of the blue, after living with them for weeks and weeks.

Dime won't move, before, during or after. He'll just sit there and let Billy kiss him, and somehow Billy will know that this means it's all right, that he's done good. That he's getting the hang of his second life.

 

Even after Billy gets a job and starts paying half the rent, which is three-quarters of his pay-check and still seems on the low side, considering the size and location, the apartment feels like it's Dime's. When Billy talks to people, he doesn't talk about my and Dime's apartment. He never says _our_ apartment.

He does say _home_. Like, _I'm expected home around six_ , when Dime's making dinner, or _I can't be home later than one_ , when he's out for drinks with some colleagues and he doesn't feel like partying all night and spend the next day at work with a headache.

Some people assume he's got a girlfriend.

"It's not like there's not plenty of people sharing a room. Guys with guys, girls with girls, guys with girls, girls with guys." Dime sounds like he knows all about it, like he's been through six roommates before Billy got here, and stayed. "It's the economy. The rents. You want something decent, it's either share or adjust your definition of 'something decent'."

"Right," Billy says, trying to sound like he's read the same books Dime's read, the same magazines. Like he pays attention when Dime watches TV.

He's always known that when you come right down to it, they really don't have all that much in common. The army's what smushed them together, and now here they are. No longer in the army, but somehow still together.

Billy thinks that if he went away, if he left, that Dime would remain mostly unchanged. Billy's the one who would be diminished, who would leave some bits and pieces of him behind, and while you could argue that they would be bits and pieces that were never a part of him to begin with, he doesn't think you could argue that they don't exist.

He wonders if this is what people mean when they talk about love.

 

Once upon a time, Billy used to think that he was in love.

Her name was Faison, and they talked for a bit before he made her come by means that are, as of yet, a mystery to him, although he knows that he enjoyed it. Probably not as much as she did, but still.

They sent each other e-mails. Long-distance relationships are hard work, but Billy figured that it was worth putting in the effort. It gave him something to do, something to look forwards to. Something to come home to, after he'd be done fighting and killing people.

Eventually, the e-mails stopped.

In the present, Billy doesn't remember who was first to break the chain, who of them waited for first days and then weeks for a reply to their last message. Who decided that, well, maybe it was better to leave it alone, no point in making it look like you were desperate to keep something alive that was probably doomed from the start. Some things just aren't meant to be.

 

"Word has it you're once again a free man," Dime said, sitting down next to Billy like there weren't a hundred-and-one other things he could be doing.

"Yeah." Billy doesn't think anyone in the army could be said to be 'free'. He's not always sure about people not in the army, either. There's always family, friends, obligations, responsibilities.

Maybe freedom is just an illusion. Something you're supposed to kill and bleed for, but not something that can actually ever be achieved. Will anyone in America obtain 'freedom' just because Billy shoots some guys who are trying to kill him over here?

If they win the unwinnable war, will people back home be free from worrying someone's going to blow them up? Is that all that freedom is?

"Don't get all mopey on me now, you hear me?" Dime said. "I mean, let's face it, you and a fucking cheerleader? No way that was going to work out. Good thing you dumped her."

"Yeah," Billy said. He knew that this would be the official story now, that he'd be the idiot who dumped a cheerleader, rather than the idiot who got dumped by one.

He still wasn't even sure if that was what had happened. Maybe they'd dumped each other. A mutual dumping, with no blame attached to anyone. A gentle, pleasant parting of ways.

Dime sighed. "You're an idiot, Billy. I mean, a cheerleader. What, you think you can do better?"

"No Sergeant." Lots of people out there weren't dating cheerleaders. Presumably, at least some of them could have, if they'd wanted to.

"Damn right you can't. I mean, a fucking cheerleader, Billy. The stuff dreams are made of."

"Yes Sergeant."

 

"A dog?" Dime looks blank, like he's familiar with the general idea of dogs, but unsure how it would apply to him, personally.

Billy shrugs. It feels good to talk to someone about this. His dreams. His hopes. The life he always imagined he would want, if given half the chance. "I always kind of wanted to get one," he says.

"Just one?" Dime looks suspicious, like he knows Billy dreams bigger than that.

"For now. I mean, you don't want to start with a bunch of them right from the start, right?"

"Well, it's allowed," Dime says, a little reluctantly. It occurs to Billy that not all people like dogs, that some people dream about homes without dogs. "I guess we'd need to set up a roster to walk it. And we'll need to find a good vet, who doesn't overcharge too much. What sort were you thinking of getting? Pup or full-grown?"

Billy realizes that in the five seconds since he's voiced his idea, Dime has put more thought into it than Billy has during the past two months that led up to this conversation. He's a little awed. He shouldn't be, maybe, this being Dime, but sometimes, it feels like they're just two guys living together, just good friends. Sometimes, Billy looks at Dime like he would look at a normal person.

Sometimes he forget that Dime isn't. To other people, maybe, because they don't really know who Dime is, but not to Billy.

"I hadn't really thought about that," he admits.

"Well, no rush. I'll do some checking," Dime says.

 

One night, Dime will ask, "Would you like me to blow you?" and Billy, surprised and a little turned on in spite of himself, will say, "Yes," because saying 'no' doesn't even seem like an option.

It will be pretty awesome, even though he will feel a little awkward, after - like, is he supposed to offer to return the favor, even though he isn't really sure he wants to and besides, he wouldn't even know how to begin? Is he supposed to say 'thank you'?

"You okay over there?" Dime will ask, half-visible in the dark-light of Billy's bedroom, and Billy will relax because it turns out he's got this after all - or Dime has, which is the same thing, only better.

"More than," he'll say, and Dime will chuckle, and in that moment, Billy will know.


End file.
